beloved
by Ebaz
Summary: You are mine/You are mine/You are mine.
1. Chapter 1

1.

* * *

Ever Grande glitters under the haze of city air, making up for the starless sky with neon glows and shines close enough to touch. It advertises the here and now, broadcasting trainers' Victory journeys in every pub on Tohjo Street, showcasing Elite battles on Nimbasa and scandals on Sunyshore; not a single building on Galactic Avenue hosts the same contents every day, allowing the public to explore it anew without fear of redundancy. It represents the new era, specialists say—history, after all, is a thing of the past.

Somewhere inside the labyrinth to the north, Hoenn's Champion descends a set of steps that have never been allowed to witness the city as it is today. They curve southward at the will of the stone on either side, ending in a modern device that clashes with the surrounding aesthetic: a door.

Steven presses his fingertips to the scanner and waits.

* * *

title and summary from _Beloved_ by Toni Morrison. it is not my work, and neither is Pokemon.


	2. Chapter 2

2.

* * *

Hoenn, a predominantly secular nation except within its extreme factions, is no place for a common fortune-teller to seek business. Outside of Fallarbor, though, perched on a crater's edge so that the eastern face of the house extended several feet below its parallel wall, lived the world's gifted and cursed.

Louisa Tiamat was told—she could never do the telling herself, only able to relay the messages given to her in the most basic translations—that, upon its birth, her child would be messenger of the world as she was, and treated as mercilessly for it. These horrors that lived with her would not die out as she did, leaving the people to rest at ease, removed from the one chance they would have to alter their worldview gruesomely. No, they would live on, breaking her child from the inside, tricking others into thinking that they could glean any sort of closure from opening up the eternal minefield of questions, the future of the world that is so much bigger than a single person's selfish mind.

When she learned she had twins, she closed the shop doors for good.

What the world refused to tell her was that each malady, ingrained as it was in her sullen soul, would pull along the very thing they were attached to as she left its physical container. Whether this happened by coincidence or because of a direct correlation between her soul's final deed and its inability to go where souls go is irrelevant.

* * *

please be aware that this is not steven/zinnia; the title and summary (and genres, for that matter) are in reference to the book _Beloved_. reasons why will become apparent in chapter 4.

also, please excuse the oc here. think of her as a function of the plot.


	3. Chapter 3

3.

* * *

He is twenty again and former champion Hypatia is taking his hand, folding into it an item ball that clicks and clacks impatiently as it shifts in his palm. Her hands shake as she pulls them away, partially from age and partially from the loss she suffers by doing this. But now is better than later; younger is better than older; spreading knowledge is better than hoarding it.

"There is a door in the Ever Grande library," she says, and she does not mean the one on the corner of Canalave and Sixth. "You know where it is—or, Leader Wallace does, anyhow."

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," Steven says, making a show of keeping his face blank.

Hypatia smiles as if well aware of a furtively-kept secret, and Steven suspects she knows exactly what his reddening face is failing to hide. To keep the Champion seat for fourteen years requires not only skill, but cleverness; she does not lack deductive reasoning.

Filling her shoes will be a dangerous task.

"Behind that door is information of which you now hold complete custody." She looks at him gravely. "This is not a place to take Leader Wallace. This is not a place to tell anyone about, verbally or otherwise. This is a place which you should forget about until it is imperative that you remember. Do you understand?"

He nods impassively, tucking away the item ball deep within his bag.

"There may be need of it in the coming months. I expect you will know when it becomes necessary." And she smiles again as if all is well, as if she feels perfectly comfortable letting the region's secrets leave her worn hands and discover a new master.

Steven looks at his hands and wonders if he can be trusted.

* * *

if cryptic isn't your thing, i'm gonna warn you right now that next chapter will be even more confusing. answers might come in chapter five. also, they might not.

B)


	4. Chapter 4

4.

* * *

it is so incredible how they roam around and play as if there is nothing wrong with their surroundings. do they not notice? do they really not yet notice that everything they can possibly be exposed to in this house is wrong and wretched and terrible and repulsive and hideous?

a woman forgot her shawl in the coatroom once. she left in a hurry and never called to claim it. they drape it around their shoulders and pretend to be people they've only met on the outside.

the conference room is thick with bad air from bad visions and they dare each other to open the door a crack.

i am and will be the only victim of this house.

but they have to know already, don't they?

they know. they definitely know, but they don't understand that they know

they cannot understand. i won't let them

the first one is cautious. she knows and she might understand. dangerous. she is cautious. she can't spend her entire life being cautious. she will age too fast.

the last one understands everything or nothing. she herself is dangerous. she will power headstrong into every situation she can and she will save them and she will realize or she will not realize that she uses her own life force for it and she will never ever ever stop even if she realizes because she is everything or nothing and her values are set in stone.

aster and zinnia, i am your mother and i love you

aster/zinnia, you need to understand me, okay?

asterzinnia i will never allow you to understand

i will never allow you to understand i will never let you grow old enough to understand i will never allow you to ask me when you age enough to stand on the edge of knowledge i will never allow you to fall i will never allow them to push you into it i will never allow you to be me

(I am your mother and I love you and I will not let them take you, too, not like they took me, not like they took It and put it inside my head and used my body to host two unlike creatures. I will not let them curse you for our ancestors' faults.)

so you understand why I have to do this,

right?

I am your mother and I love you

* * *

and now, back to your regularly-scheduled grammar and formatting


	5. Chapter 5

5.

* * *

A month, a span of exactly twenty-eight days, possibly down to the hour, passed before the shivery item ball disrupted Steven's fairly smooth debut as champion for the first time.

Hoenn had a hierarchical system of disaster control whose intricacies Steven did not yet fully understand, but the basic premise was simple. Intra- and inter-city crises were countered by local authority; rangers dealt with route crises when they involved pokémon; the League stepped in only when local forces were compromised past a certain point or if Elite-sensitive matters were concerned. Champions could serve entire terms without this third tier ever being necessary; Hoenn prided itself on the capabilities of its ACE Trainer system, and rightfully so.

At 10:44 AM, the third-tier emergency lights blinked on. Newer assistants frowned and exchanged glances, turning to their handbooks for guidance; veterans hesitated, double- and triple-checking the signal before notifying the main office.

"Elite Leader Drake, we have… a Code 3 from the Fallarbor-Meteor Falls area."

There was silence from the other end, presumably of the disbelieving kind; then, it shifted, became more tense, transformed perceptibly without any sort of sensory cue. The now in-focus, fully-alert silence was cut by a response of equally grave precision, so similar in tone that it was as if there had been no seam between dead air and voice.

"Details?"

Worried silence now. The ACE pressed the receiver to his chest and asked four terse questions, the answers to which he condensed into a single report for the benefit of his superior. "A woman on the west end of Fallarbor has her six-year-old daughters locked in a psychic Imprisonment above the house. Dragons are guarding the perimeter and have put three in critical condition already."

If the report had been in person, the ACE would have detected on Drake's face an impossibly quick reaction to one of the words in those two sentences, smoothed over again by impartial concern. But silence did not betray him over telephone this time, and so for all intents and purposes the Elite's reaction remained neutral.

"The Champion and I will be departing in five minutes. All challenges for today should be rescheduled."

Steven met Drake on the balcony of the northern tower flanked by two aerodactyl, bred for speed and purchased in bulk for League purposes. The journey was thus exceptionally short, giving Steven little time to process the pieces that had been given to him. There had been the call from ACE, which Drake had relayed to him; and then there had been the second call, terse and hurried yet no less calm than was characteristic, from Hypatia. The item ball had wriggled its way out of its perch on his desk not two seconds before she'd called, and it squirmed still in his pocket as they flew.

And then there was the event itself. It did not occur in real time. The trainers on the ground in combat with a scarred salamence were as static as an oil painting's mimicry of movement; the house had stopped its active peeling and crumbling to glow scarlet-sapphire with immobile flames; and the orbs suspended above were stiller than anything living could be.

A figure, separate from the oeuvre surrounding it, rose from the ash-dusted roof, and Steven saw too late what was coming.

* * *

remember when i updated things regularly? nah me either


	6. Chapter 6

6.

* * *

"Right, so here are three weeks of lecture notes." A binder titled "Bioethics 161" in practical purple print slid across the table.

Its intended recipient didn't look up. There was a delay, and then a "Thanks," and then another delay, during which the instigator of the conversation seemed to want to instigate further, but refrained (out of politeness? nervousness? It didn't matter anyway, because the other one had already completely forgotten she was there), until she finally regained her presence and said:

"So, do you have the reading notes, or…?"

"Oh, um." Brown eyes, ringed with fatigue and sheepishness, rose up from behind their screen for the first time. "Oh. Um."

"Oh, Bill." She sank down into the chair across from him, folding her arms across the table and resting her chin atop them.

He closed his laptop with a sigh and mimicked her position, reaching her eye level. "I'm so close to being done with the system. Like, _so close_. Like, close enough that Celio only found two bugs in the whole thing."

"Close enough that you haven't thought about anything else for days?"

"Close enough that I'll start thinking about bioethics tonight. Promise." He gave her a hopeful grin, which, combined with the dark circles under his eyes, had a somewhat beseeching effect.

She sighed, trying not to smile back. "Come to my apartment and we can go through it together."

"You're the best, Daisy." She nodded in confirmation, and he prodded the tip of her nose with his index finger as thanks before returning to his beloved mountains of code.

* * *

"Oh, that is messed up," Daisy murmured, frowning at the fuzzy print of an overly-photocopied book excerpt.

"Hm?" Bill looked up from amidst his nest of papers, eager for a distraction.

"Complete psychic fusion. Human-pokémon." She uncapped her highlighter and began to annotate, biting her lip in concentration and concern.

"Dude," Bill began, sounding more interested than horrified, but Daisy shook her head and made a hum of dissent.

"Psychic fusion as an alternative to incarceration. Super illegal and super covertly practiced by ACE until way too recently. He discussed it in class, but not with any relation to the government." She shot a disapproving glance at the purple University of Fuchsia banner hanging over the window.

"Where are you getting this reading from?" Bill sat up, disrupting a pile of notes with his movement, but Daisy was too deep in scrutiny to be scandalized by the annihilation of her organization system.

"We need outside sources for our project—here—" She scooted closer to him and pointed at a grainy paragraph. "'Complete mental fusion—unlike the more commercially-practiced partial fusion, whose dangers lie on a small enough scale that the process appeals to the performance-enhancing trainer subculture—almost ensured death or comparable for both creatures. Survivors existed in tumultuous and often physically painful mental states, their existences ravaged by confinement to one space. It was speculated that more success could be gleaned if the mind of the host subject were prepared and strengthened extensively before administering the fusion, but the Indigo experiments were officially discontinued in KJA021 before such hypotheses could be tested.'"

"Huh."

Daisy mistook his interjection for concern and nodded, her eyes wide. "'Occasional cases of suspected fusion attempts have been reported outside of Kanto-Johto since then—' okay, this article is clearly affiliated with Indigo if it's refusing to implicate itself that blatantly— 'the most recent of which is thought to have occurred in Hoenn, administered to a member of the Draconids. The subject was seemingly stable for a number of years, thought to be due to the rigorous mental practices of her faction, and made a living as a local prophet until her attempted murder-suicide in KJA058—' Moltres, only four years ago?— 'culminating in the death of one of her six-year-old daughters and severe injury of the other.'"

"…Huh."

"Huh."

* * *

a note about the timelines i'm using (borrowed from my kinda-but-not-really-nuzlocke Three, which is in as sad of an update state as this):

KJA = Kanto-Johto Alliance. this chapter takes place in KJA062. red starts his adventure in KJA065. at least, that's what i've decided for now.

i need constructive criticism if you have any to offer


	7. Chapter 7

7.

* * *

There she was, all crossed ankles and clasped hands and cheery smiles, her rather pointed stare the only indication of the fathoms-deep tension that was absolutely tangible in the room.

Here he was, avoiding eye contact and beginning to pace back and forth, having precisely the encounter he had been trying so desperately to avoid.

It had been like this since May and Brendan had left the room, and since then Steven had been berating himself for not going with them. The embarrassment of momentary intrusion on their time alone was pleasure compared to this unbearable—something. Whatever it was. Whatever the emotion was when you were face-to-face with the daughter of—

"You killed my mom," Zinnia said pleasantly.

Steven looked up in surprise and accidentally met her gaze; he held it for a second too long before looking away more deliberately than he had intended.

She sighed as if she were disappointed in him. "You killed my mom, and now you're feeling uncomfortable because you know we both know it and you don't know what to say to me. I can't _imagine_ how you must be feeling right now."

He reddened, and she let him bake quietly in his agitation while he deliberated whether or not to respond; then, when he finally opened his mouth, she took away his choice.

"I remember it pretty well, you know. Probably better than you, 'cause you're probably the type to repress bad memories, right? Hide under the covers and pretend it makes them go away? Ignore them until they smack you in the face?"

"Not this one," he'd meant to say; _this one won't fucking leave me alone_; but what came out instead was "I'm sorry," and he recoiled at how small his voice sounded in the expanse of the observatory that she had been filling so well.

"Oh, it's fine!" she said cheerfully. "She was gonna kill _me_, so, like, you technically saved my life. _Buuuut_—" her face became a caricature of thoughtfulness—"you _did_ let her stab my twin sister to death first. Right in front of me, too. That was a little mean, don't you think? Pausing because you didn't fully understand the situation yet? Being frozen with terror for just a second too long?"

Slightly annoyed by her uninvited psychoanalysis, he moved to reply, but she cut him off again:

"I don't blame you, though. Really. Most people would have done the same thing." Her expression gave Steven the feeling that she considered herself apart from 'most people' in this case. "Also, you had nothing to do with the worst of it. What was the name of the champion before you? Hypatia?"

Steven's stomach curled. Hurriedly, before she could elaborate, he protested. "I already know what happened—I saw the files—" He thought of the secret room within the secret library, the subdued klefki rattling feebly inside the cramped item ball, and fought back chills.

Zinnia held up a finger to silence him and he complied. "Don't worry, I saw them, too." Steven's eyes widened. "Remember the part where they cracked open my mother's skull and poured gothitelle psychic-juice in it to punish her for her 'political crimes'?" Her air quotes were forceful; she had lost her too-bright smile.

That had indeed been the phrase used in the file. Steven gaped at her, wondering how she had gotten access to it.

"Know what those crimes were?" Steven shook his head mutely; the file hadn't elaborated on them. "Trying to warn people that a _massive fucking meteoroid_ is on its way to obliterate us all, and the only thing that's gonna stop it is a _literal god_. Oh, but Hypatia doesn't _do_ religion. Hypatia doesn't like made-up stories interfering with her _enlightened_, _rationalist_ regime." She was actually scowling now; all pretense had vanished.

There had been protests at Hypatia's inauguration, Steven recalled; he remembered thinking they were as full of nonsense as Hypatia had treated them, her amused face on camera sparking a small controversy. This attitude seemed miles away in the face of their current situation and surroundings, the prophesied meteoroid much too close for comfort.

"They were supposed to do follow-up studies on us, y'know, me and Aster, to see if we'd got any gothitelle in us, but as far as I know they never did show up. Or maybe they did, and Mama turned them away." Her grin was back. "Sometimes I wonder, though—am I part psychic? Or am I just irreparably fucked up from being doused in my dead sister's blood at the age of six?" Steven almost expected her to start laughing, to keep playing up the image of affable insanity; but Zinnia's expression remained almost vapidly pleasant, though he knew that she was anything but.

She stared at him for a moment longer before getting up from her seat at the windowsill and heading down the stairs abruptly. He didn't move.

He waited a few minutes after hearing the main door open and close before gathering his things to leave. He descended and the exit was in sight—but so was she, still smiling.

She held the door open and accompanied him on his way.

* * *

let me know if you have any unanswered questions; i tried to wrap things up as best i could. also i was totally supposed to go to bed early tonight but nope it's 1 in the morning why am i not surprised oops.

i hope i'll be able to publish more stories this week cos i'm on spring break, but who knows. thanks for sticking with me through this one, though, even though i'm shit at updating!

xoxoxo,  
ebaz


End file.
